Who was the founding psychologist of the social-cultural area of psychology?

-- Ashly Wimmer (ashwim@yahoo.com), October 14, 2001

Answers

The traditional answer to this is that the first textbooks in social psychology were written by psychologist William McDougall and sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross, both published in 1908 (links to on-line copies of both can be found at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/links.htm). Gordon Allport claimed that the first social psychological experiment was:

Triplett, Norman. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pacemaking and competition. American Journal of Psychology, 9, 507-533. (available on-line at: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Triplett/)

but this claim has recently been called into question by historians of the topic. I believe there was a special issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences published last year dedicated to the history of social psychology. You will probably want to have a look at that.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), October 14, 2001.